


Wash Away My Troubles, Wash Away My Pain

by APgeeksout



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Affection, Awkward Tension, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Dean/Roman/Seth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 05:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15066407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: "Hey, sleeping beauty," Dean said with a crooked grin.  "How you feelin'?"The sound he made didn't really amount to words, but he figured it communicatedshittywell enough.Dean's face softened with sympathy.  "Coffee? Drugs?""Please and please," he said, voice sounding as rough as the rest of him felt.





	Wash Away My Troubles, Wash Away My Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Set shortly after Payback 2017, in a slight AU where Roman’s injuries will linger a bit longer than they did in kayfabe.

It was the pain that woke him again, singing through his ribs and coiling up his spine, pulsing from his shoulder down into his fingertips and itching along his jaw. It took him a minute to fully surface, inventory the hurt (nothing new since Sunday; just his last dose of painkillers fading out), locate himself (deep leather recliner, framed prints of Crosley Field on the wall -- Dean's place), and register that he wasn't alone (two pairs of eyes trained on him; both his boys, perched on Dean's couch and trying not to look anxious).

"Hey, sleeping beauty," Dean said with a crooked grin. "How you feelin'?"

The sound he made didn't really amount to words, but he figured it communicated _shitty_ well enough. 

Dean's face softened with sympathy. "Coffee? Drugs?"

"Please and please," he said, voice sounding as rough as the rest of him felt.

Dean leaned down to drop a light kiss onto his head, and then passed on to the kitchen, leaving Roman alone with Seth's mournful gaze. 

"You gonna stay all the way over there?" he asked, just for the pleasure of watching his little brother's worried face go sheepish and smiling.

Seth padded over from the couch and leaned cautiously into Roman's reach, let him get his good arm around him and pull him just a little closer. "I just don't want to hurt you," he said quietly. He didn't have to say the _again_ out loud for Roman to hear it. It was there in the background of everything he said and everything he did lately. That was something they were all going to have to talk about. Later. When he wasn't bouncing between way too high and not nearly high enough for talking about feelings.

"Breathing hurts right now," he said, and tipped his head forward to rest its throbbing weight against Seth's stomach. "Doesn't mean I stopped needing the air. Okay?"

He felt Seth draw in a sharp breath of his own. "Okay," Seth echoed, and then there were cool fingers curved against the back of his neck, stroking gently over the place where the strap of the sling had bitten into his skin while he slept.

Neither of them pulled away until Dean returned, juggling a steaming mug, a prescription bottle, and a slice of toast drizzled liberally with honey, and laid the whole deal out on the tv tray set up on Roman's good side. 

"Thanks, babe." He downed two caplets with a sip of strong, sweet coffee and chased it all with a nibble of toast while Seth and Dean settled back onto the sofa, carefully respectful of each other's personal space in a way that made him ache in a whole different set of places. "Thanks for letting me set up camp here," he added. 

The docs in San Jose had sprung him from the hospital before lunchtime on Monday, but they hadn't cleared him to fly with the busted ribs. Until they did, or he could face another couple day's ride down to Pensacola, he was holed up at Dean's place in Vegas. 

"Mi casa es su casa, brother," Dean said. "Just wish you'd let me do more, you know?"

"Doing plenty for me already."

Dean shrugged. "Turnabout and all that. I'm just sayin', it probably wouldn't kill you to let somebody take care of you for a change." 

It was on his tongue to protest, but before he got any words out, his few slivers of memory of the hours after the show gave him a little jab. Dean pacing the floor, tapping an edgy rhythm against his collar bone with stained fingers, his voice raw around the rush of words that slowly made it sink in that the blood smeared over his skin and spattered onto his jeans was all Roman's and not Dean's own. Seth edging into the room with an unfamiliar hesitancy, already halfway through a _say the word and I'm gone_ speech before Roman's drug-slow brain had even registered his entrance. Dean hurling himself across the space from the bedside to the doorway. Seth flinching but not retreating. All three of them frozen in surprise when Dean had flung his arms around Seth's neck instead of launching a fist into his jaw. 

He’d scared them. Bad enough to bring Seth to his hospital room even when he wasn’t sure of his welcome. Bad enough that Dean hadn't thrown him out on his ass then; had let him back into his space even now that Roman was out of the woods. 

There was nothing he could do to take that scare back out of them, but he could throw them a bone now. 

"There is one thing," he said, then choked down another bite of toast, waiting for it to settle on his stomach. 

"Name it, Big Dog." Dean said, and Seth nodded earnestly over his shoulder. 

"I've been fine on my own, these last couple of days," he stressed. "Seriously. It's just that they gave me the real good drugs, and when they kick in, they've been makin' me kinda dizzy."

"No heavy machinery for you," Seth said. 

Roman smiled at him, side-tracked for a moment. He'd dozed in front of some newish episodes of NXT yesterday; there was a joke in there somewhere, but his gears weren't turning fast enough this morning to get him to it. "No shower either," he said ruefully. "Man, I'm so gross." 

"Wasn't gonna say anything, but you _do_ kinda reek," Dean said and stuck his tongue out.

He snorted, and regretted it when it jarred his ribs. "Fuck you," he said, fond if still breathless. 

"The second you're back in one piece, babe. Believe that." Dean grinned, making it a joke and a promise both at once, and he wished he felt good enough to take him up on it. 

“Hold you to that,” he said. “For real, though, even if I wasn't afraid I'd take a header in the bathroom," he paused to gesture at his wrapped shoulder, "I don't think I can reach back far enough to wash my hair good.”

“I think we can do something about that.” Dean nodded to himself, then paused and turned partway to face Seth. “Kinda sounds like a three man job. You up for it?”

“Yeah, man, for sure. Whatever I can do to help. I’m game.” He was rambling a little, looking from Dean to Roman and back again, his expression soft and sincere in a way that Roman still wasn’t used to seeing on him again. He felt another little bloom of pain take root under his ribs, one that didn’t have anything to do with breaks and bruises.

* * *

It took more out of him than he wanted it to just to haul his ass out of the recliner and get it moving down the hall with Dean and Seth hovering watchfully at either side. They reached Dean’s bedroom, and he let himself be manhandled - if that was still what it was called when they were moving so slow and touching him so careful - out of the sling and the sliced-up t-shirt underneath and the ratty sweats he'd been living in, until he was bare-ass naked except for the tape criss-crossing his chest and binding up his shoulder.

Dean hissed as he looked him over for the first time since he and Seth had left the hospital to make the next town for Raw. He'd been feeling like one big bruise, but really there were about a million separate ones in different sizes and shapes and colors. The nastiest ones were the blotches of black and purple that wrapped around his left hip - souvenirs of the ring apron and the ambulance's doorframe and Strowman's giant-ass boot - and the splashes of red and green along his flank, over what the doc had identified as his cracked 7th and 8th ribs. Dean bit his lip and let his hand just hover for a second, like he didn't know where might be safe to touch. 

"Looks worse than is, babe," he said softly, drawing Dean's eyes back up to his face.

"I know you ain't telling me to believe that." Dean smiled, small and subdued, and reached up to cup his face between both hands, tipping his head down to press a kiss onto his eyebrow. "Wish it was true anyway."

He breathed out and leaned into Dean's palms, let his forehead rest against Dean's scruffy jaw.

"Hang tight," Dean said after a moment, and dropped a hand to trace the edge of one strip of the tape on his shoulder. "Let me find something for this." 

Dean disappeared into the next room, and the sound of him rifling through the cabinet carried back to him and Seth, still standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed. Seth hooked out an elbow for him to link through and lean against, like being courtly might cancel out the awkwardness of Roman being so exposed, of all of them being here like this, both together and not, at the same time. 

He closed a hand around Seth's forearm and resisted - more for the sake of his own ribs than to spare Seth's pride - the sudden, dopey urge to laugh. "You gonna take me to the big dance?"

Seth smiled sheepishly and covered Roman's hand with his own. "After you're cleared, I kinda would like to get in the ring with you again. I'll totally bring you a corsage, if that's what you want."

"Tulip and hyacinth?" Dean asked as he reemerged with a half-full bottle of baby oil. 

Seth gave Dean a confused look, and Roman knew that at least his not following the conversation wasn't just on account of being high.

Dean shrugged and broke Seth's gaze, popping the cap on the bottle and beginning to drizzle cocoa-butter scented oil over the webbing of kinesiotape on Roman’s shoulder "Figured maybe you were going to learn how to apologize in the language of flowers. Should have known that was a dumb thought."

He was a long time past being surprised anymore by Dean's knowing unexpected bits of trivia or by the suddenness of his anger and how it came out with a lightness that might sound like joking if you didn't know better (even after everything, he was still pretty sure Seth was one of the people who knew better). He might have been surprised by the way Seth didn't have a comeback or an excuse or any kind of response at all. Mostly, though, he was too tired to process too much of anything, so he just stood by and let Seth take another fraction of his weight and Dean gently smear the oil onto his wrappings and into his skin (and probably get a little in his stringy hair when he gently unwound his bun and shook it loose around his shoulders), and wondered dully which flowers he'd use to say _you're my treasure_ to Dean or _please don't give up_ to Seth.

* * *

"Huh, this is different than I remember," Seth said, the tiles catching his voice and throwing it back at them in an echo a little more nasally than the genuine article. 

"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you ditch us to hang out with a higher class of reprobate," Dean said, and crossed the floor to turn on and adjust the fancy showerhead, leaving Roman to steady himself against Seth. "Things change while you're gone."

"Don't I know it," Seth murmured softly, and Roman felt him slump a little at his side.

He wasn't sure if Dean could have heard the words over the shush of the running water, but even if he hadn't, he looked just a little bit sorry when he moved back toward them. "Give ya the nickel tour after the big dog crashes out again."

"I'd really like that," Seth said, earnest and eager. 

"Felt kind of dumb," Dean said, and shucked off his t-shirt and kicked away his jeans as he went on, "putting so much into remodeling, when it's just me, and I'm never here. It's good, though, having the space now." He took Roman by the hand, and drew him toward the shower with Seth trailing behind to shed his own clothes. The whole time, Dean kept up a steady patter about cutting skylights to bring more of the sun inside to him, about the patio and the balcony and sleeping in the desert air, about tax credits and a dozen other things Roman was fairly sure he didn't actually care that much about. 

It dawned on him, slower than he was proud of, that Dean was nervous - or maybe just thought that Roman was - and just jabbering away as a distraction from Roman's own pitifulness, from how weird it was to have Seth around again after so long. He gave the hand that was still holding his a fierce squeeze, and Dean stopped rambling long enough to give him a crooked smile.

When he stepped under the water - just the right side of too hot, spray adjusted to a few wide jets, the pressure steady and just strong enough to be the sweet kind of painful when it fell onto a bright bruise - a moan surged up from somewhere deep in his gut. 

"Good, huh?" Dean asked, and his smile was big enough to cut a dimple in one cheek when Roman blinked away the water to look at him. "Thinking we do this like a slow dance," he continued, stepping in a little closer and urging Roman's good arm up over his shoulder. He fit his hand to a relatively unblemished place along Roman's side. "That work? Lean on me, much as you need to here, and we'll make Seth be your shampoo boy." 

"Sounds good," he agreed, even as he felt Seth gather his hair behind his shoulders and card through its length.

"It's a lot of responsibility," Seth said, and Roman could hear the smile on his face without having to turn back to see it, "but I think I'm up to the job. Is that whole shelf your products?"

Dean answered with an easy jab about all his "lotions and potions", and Roman listened to them chatter around him and wondered whether Seth had noticed or felt any kind of way about how much of Roman's stuff lived in Dean's house these days. 

Then, he eased back under the spray, and didn't think about much of anything for a while. Instead, he let his boys steer for him and just felt: hot water pelting his sore muscles; Seth's hands in his hair and rubbing tight circles into his scalp and the back of his stiff neck; Dean's smoothing suds and a soft washcloth over his skin; Seth's arm coming carefully around his middle to steady him, palm spread warm and easy against his belly, when Dean bent down to soap up the parts of him he couldn't reach standing up; the dusting of barely-there pecks Dean scattered over him as his skin rinsed clean; the tremble in Seth's jaw when he dared to drop a single kiss of his own against the top of his good shoulder. 

"You feel like getting off at all?" Dean asked, standing again, with his mouth close to his ear and one hand on his thigh. "'Cause I think we can make that happen if you do."

He considered it for a long shivery moment - how easy it would be to lean back flush against Seth's chest and let himself be held up, warm and steady, while Dean demonstrated all the ways he knew how to make his knees weak - and then shook his head. 

"Raincheck." If they were going to do this again, all three of them, then he wanted to be checked-in for it: taking it all in and savoring them both and giving as good as he got, not just drifting between them in a haze. He added the missed opportunity to the list of things he owed Strowman a beating for. 

"Okay, then here comes the really sexy part," Dean said, and reached for the network of tape at his shoulder and began carefully peeling up the soggy edges, loosening them with more hot water and thick lather as he went along. 

Roman resisted the urge to yank the whole mess off at once, like the world's worst band-aid; his already-raw skin wouldn't thank him for it. Plus, there was Dean, working away on him purposeful and focused and tender, and Seth's almost-grovelling gratitude at something as small as being allowed to stick close even when Roman's defenses were down. He knew the satisfaction of putting your hands on the people you loved, giving your strength and taking their pain and soothing you both. He could barely do for himself right now, but he could give his boys a taste of that peace, just by choking down his pride and letting himself be weak with them. 

By the time it was finished and all that covered his shoulder was a gross yellow-brown bruise and a film of the baby oil Dean had used to melt the last traces of tacky glue from his skin, he was leaning against Seth pretty hard, dizzy and dopey and achy. It was good to feel clean again, to be touched and feel cared for, but he was running out of steam fast. 

They must have noticed, in the way his movements had gone clumsy and even slower, or the way their words had begun to wash over him like another sluice of warm water, making Dean repeat his soft questions before they registered, because they stuck close as Dean shut off the tap and they maneuvered out of the shower. They made quick work of snugging him into a cocoon of fluffy green towels, gently squeezing out his hair and patting over his skin like he was something fragile and precious.

In the bedroom, Seth helped him keep his feet under him while Dean fished a worn-soft pair of basketball shorts out of Roman’s drawer of the dresser and drew them up his legs, careful of the tender bruises at his hip as he tugged the waistband into place. Then, he went to the straight backed chair in the corner, tipped it to clear a pile of merch off onto the floor, and set it down again in front of Roman. 

He settled gingerly into its seat with a sigh, his back supported and held stiff and straight against its wooden rails. He sat and let his head swim and just concentrated on breathing deep for a while, dimly aware of the sounds and movements of his boys talking, of Seth leaving the room and Dean pulling on clothes of his own. After a little while, he felt Dean settle behind him to ruffle a towel over his damp hair, and then, careful fingers threading into the strands.

"Hey, it's Wednesday," Dean said suddenly, breaking the quiet and Roman’s daze along with it. Dean was separating his hair into sections now, starting to weave it into a single braid, his deft touch making it a little hard to focus on his words instead of just melting back into his hands. "Means beef stew at that diner. The one over by the laundromat, with the good music in the jukebox? Know you probably don't feel like circling out, but what if I picked some up to-go? Think you could eat some of that?"

He'd been getting by for the last couple of days on Jello water and mugs of microwaved Chicken-and-Stars - stuff he could fix and eat basically one-handed; stuff he could keep down between doses - and his stomach answered for him, growling plaintively at the prospect of beef broth thickened up with buttery mashed potatoes. 

"I'll take that as a 'yes'." Dean chuckled and leaned down to drop a kiss on the crown of his head before his hands went back to work. 

"Let me go," Seth offered, coming back in, dressed in dark jeans and a band t-shirt, his hair a hopeless cloud of frizz from the shower’s steam. "You stay here with the big man."

"You sure?" Dean asked. Roman felt him work the last of his hair into the skinny tail of the braid and cast around for something to tie it off with.

"Yeah, it's no problem." Seth took a hair rubber band from around his wrist and stepped forward to offer it up. "I'll gas up the rental and make some calls while I'm out."

"Thanks," Dean said, taking the elastic and winding it around the ends of the braid. "There's a placemat menu stuck on the fridge. Should have an address, and you can see if they have anything you eat."

"Cool." Seth skimmed a palm gently over Dean's handiwork, let it rest warm against the back of Roman's neck. "Any special requests?"

He shook his head dully and half-listened as Dean and Seth talked stiffly about extra orders of carry-out to stock the fridge, about errands and driving directions, the only things passing between them practical information and unemotional logistics. It was better than watching them brawl, but, in a backwards way, also a little worse: formal and painfully polite. They might not be enemies anymore, exactly, but they also didn't sound like they’d ever been friends or partners or anything else important to each other. 

With a squeeze to the back of his neck, Seth was gone again, and Dean sat down at the foot of the bed, his own bare knee bumping companionably against Roman’s. 

“Okay,” he said, “decision time. You want wrapped back up?”

He shrugged his shoulder and raised his arm out to his side, testing the range he had before the muscles screamed at him in protest: still not great, but better than it’d been yesterday. “Let it breathe for awhile.”

Dean nodded, still watching him appraisingly. “Shirt? Got a couple you won't have to pull over your head.”

“Sure,” he said, and in a minute, Dean was helping him shrug into a soft sweatshirt and pulling a zipper carefully closed, hiding the colorful splotches on his chest behind the golden clockworks of Becky’s merch logo. 

“Okay, last thing before I quit bugging you and let you sleep it off a little more,” he said, reaching back to free his braid from under the neck of the sweatshirt. “You want to go back down to the recliner? Or, I can make you up kind of a throne of pillows in the bed if you want to try to rest up here.”

"It's good to be king," he said. Even slow as his thoughts were running right now, it didn't take any time at all to figure out that sticking here meant not having to weave all the way back through the house, or to realize that the chair didn't leave any room for company. 

"Hang tight, then , yer Majesty," Dean said, and disappeared into the hall. 

When he reemerged, it was with a precarious armful of pillows in different sizes and shapes and materials, remnants of one of the times he'd tried to smother his insomnia with a QVC marathon instead of whiskey or cigarettes or convenience store nachos or midnight bike rides. Roman watched him Tetris them into a shape that would support his back and his bum arm, and remembered coming home with Dean to find all the packages on the doorstep. Giving him shit about it, getting into a pillow fight, going back to his own place the following week to be greeted by a porch full of ceramic casserole dishes in the full spectrum of colors. He'd been giving the spares as wedding gifts ever since. The last - a royal purple with an iridescent finish - was wrapped up and waiting for Charlotte and Becky's reception. He thought about the one he'd kept in his own kitchen, the outside glazed the shifting green-blue of the sea, the inside loaded up with cheat-day lasagna, enough to share. 

"Where'd you go?" Dean asked. He had finished up with the pillows, and now hovered over him, smiling fondly and helping to tuck his arm back into its sling and settle the strap so it wouldn't dig into his neck. 

"Thinking about lasagna," he said, mostly truthfully, and helped Dean haul him up out of the chair and over into the bed, where he reclined against the pillows at an angle that made breathing a little easier.

"You that hungry? I can whip something up to hold you over 'til lunch comes." 

He shook his head. "I'm good. Just keep me company?" 

"You never even have to ask," he said, and sat down beside him, careful not to jostle the mattress beneath them. 

"Can I ask you something else, though? Kinda heavy?"

Dean's smile went a little sideways at that, but he nodded. "Sure. We'll blame it on the drugs." 

"You trust him?" He didn't have to clarify; there was only ever one "him" between them. 

"I dunno." Dean shrugged, big and expressive and lost. "Like, when you ask me straight-out like that, my gut says 'no. fuck no', but, then he's here now, and I haven't kicked his ass yet, and, like, I keep leaving him alone with the most important thing in my life, so..."

He nodded like he understood, even though he wasn't sure he was really tracking: Dean's title was probably still in his carry-on; Seth had said something about a rental, so he wasn't behind the wheel of Dean's loyal old Ford; he tried to remember if there was any one big holy grail in Dean's tape collection, or especially irreplaceable memorabilia hung up in the guest bedroom...

"I'm talking about you, Dopey," Dean said, sounding a little like he wanted to laugh at him. 

"Oh," he said, his sluggish brain finally catching up with the program.

"Yeah, 'oh!'," Dean said, mimicking his surprise, and really laughed this time. It was a good sound, almost as light and warm as the kiss he pressed sweetly to his mouth. "I love you."

"Love you, too." He snaked his good arm around him, and Dean let himself be tugged closer. 

“What about you? You think he’s sorry? Think he’s changed?”

It was Roman’s turn to shrug then. “I want to, but you know I wanted to believe he was still our boy even when he was out there swinging chairs.”

“Yeah.” Dean sighed. “You’re a pretty lousy judge of character,” he went on drily. “The company you keep, man, I just don’t know...”

He tipped his heavy head to lean against Dean’s. "Take a nap with me, babe."

Dean kissed him again and shuffled on the mattress, settling another pillow on Roman's lap and tucking the long line of his body close against his leg.

"This okay?" Dean asked, nuzzling deeper into the pillow. He draped his arm around both of his thighs, and hitched one leg up onto Roman's, skin on skin. "'M not squishing you?"

"Nah." He let his good hand settle onto Dean's hair, stroking it back from his temple. "You're perfect."

"Now I know they gave you the good drugs." Dean chuckled, and Roman felt the shake of it in his chest.

* * *

"Sorry. Sorry," Seth said, voice soft, hands raised clear of the blanket now spread across his legs and over Dean's shoulder. All the lines of his body coming together to spell out _I’m not here to hurt you this time._

"I didn't mean to wake you up," he said, still hushed, glancing over at Dean, who didn't seem to have stirred at all. "You both looked cold."

Roman nodded, head still a little foggy. "Thanks," he said from a rough throat. 

"Food's still downstairs. Didn't know if you were ready for it, but I brought some apple juice," he said gesturing to the nightstand, now home to a huge insulated cup with a bendy straw. Roman started to reach for it, and he stepped forward, "Let me." 

He let Seth hold the cup for him, took a long drink, cold and sweet, and smoothed his hand back over Dean's hair. "Pull up a chair. Stay a while."

Seth smiled, relieved and bashful about it, like he'd expected to be banished instead, shut up in a different room like a dog that couldn't be trusted not to bite unexpectedly, and moved the chair closer to the side of the bed. 

"Not surprised he's out so hard," he offered, nodding at Dean's slack face on the pillow, the lax fist that peeked out from under the edge of the blanket at Roman's hip. “I don’t think he's really slept since Sunday, except for a couple of hours when he let me drive.”

"Glad he wasn't alone," he said, and his gut twisted a little at the image of Dean, wired and worried for all those long hours. “Glad you were with him,” he added, and Seth looked at him and away, at him and away, wound up in some heavy emotion that he maybe didn't want to lay on him just yet. Roman could respect that. Could be glad for it; his own feelings seemed to weight plenty more than enough lately.

“I’m glad he let me be,” Seth said finally. "I was kind of loaded up for a bigger fight than he gave me on that front," he admitted. “There’s so much I...” he trailed off, shook his head. “I shouldn’t make you talk about this while you’re on painkillers. I just - I don’t even know how to start being a person you want to have around again.”

"Just keep trying, little brother.” His eyelids were heavy, and and he heard his words starting to blur around the edges. He petted Dean’s hair again. “He is, too. We all are."


End file.
